The present invention relates to quick-drying, gel-type disinfectant compositions having a surprisingly low content of alcohol. Such disinfectants have special interest in the field of hand and skin disinfection.
For a long period, there has been a major interest for the disinfection of hands and skin in hospitals and in the food industry. In some instances, the doctors, nurses, and workers must apply a disinfectant to their hands or skin several times (20 times or more) a day. As such disinfectants should preferably result in an instantaneous removal or inactivation of micro-organisms and at the same time rapidly evaporate or become absorbed into the skin within one minute, high amounts of an alcohol, typically ethanol, are often utilised in such disinfectants as ethanol readily evaporates from the skin at body temperature. An example of a commercial high-alcohol disinfectant comprises around 60% ethanol, around 8% lanolin, around 4% of an emulsifier, and around 28% of water.
Alcohol-solution disinfectants have, thus, found broad use by doctors and nurses in hospitals and workers in the food industry. However, due to the low viscosity of such products, spillage easily occur when the disinfectant is applied to the palm of the hand and rubbed into the hand and fingers by the user. Needless to say that overflow of an alcohol-solution disinfectant is highly undesirable, and, thus, gel-type disinfectants have recently been developed.
From EP 0604848 A2 a quick-drying, gel-type disinfectant is known. The disinfectants disclosed therein typically have an alcohol content of 40-90% and further include an anti-microbicial agent, a carboxyvinyl polymer, and a water-soluble, high molecular cellulose compound as thickening agent.
A high amount of ethanol may however result in the drying out of the skin. Thus, in the food industry, this has been a major problem in the situations where the workers need to disinfect their hands numerous times a day. Frequent use of conventional high-alcohol disinfectants have in some cases led to early pensioning off workers due to permanent irritation and drying out of the skin. This problem has partly been solved in EP 0604848 A2 by using a wetting agent. However, to the best of knowledge of the present applicant, the problems associated with irritation and drying out of the skin have not been fully solved.
The problem underlying the present invention is to provide disinfectant compositions which have a reduced tendency to dry out the skin of the users while at the same time having a drying time (absorption/evaporation time) of at the most a minute, preferable at the most 45 seconds, as longer drying times either would require the inconvenient use of towels or would lead to a markedly increase in the productivity of the workers, doctors or nurses.
The present invention provides a novel type of low alcohol, quick-drying, gel-type disinfectant composition, i.e. a water-based disinfectant composition, comprising one or more anti-microbicidal ingredients, 0-30% of an alcohol, a thickening agent, an emulsifier, and water.
The present invention also provides the use of such a composition as a hand disinfectant.
The present invention furthermore provides a gel-type carrier system comprising 1-20% of an alcohol, 0.2-1.6% of an acrylic acid copolymer as a thickening agent, 0.1-3.2% of an emulsifier, optionally 0.2-0.6% of a basic component and the balance of water.
Such novel carrier systems may be useful in various fields, e.g. in the field of paints and in skin care products.